Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wednesday November 09, 2005 @06:59PM
from the people-just-don't-get-it dept.

Slashback tonight brings a few corrections, clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including several updates to the Sony DRM rootkit fiasco, another school system's take on intelligent design, some of the first pictures of the much talked about avian flu virus, a sentencing that gives us the first torrent user to get jail time, Bernard Golden weighs in on the continuing Massachussetts OpenDocument debate, and one users commentary on recent announcements to start pay-per-download services for TV shows. Read on for the details.

Sony still not "getting it".c writes "Mark Russinovich continues his investigation of Sony's DRM as he tries out the official uninstaller. His verdict? 'I've analyzed virulent forms of spyware/adware that provide more straightforward means of uninstall.'" Relatedly Cronos1388 writes "According to the Inquirer an Italian group is also suing Sony over the rootkit." Also, an unexpected side effect of this technology is that script kiddies have been able to leverage Sony's tool to hide unauthorized cheat programs from the watchful eye of MMO creators.

Intelligent design supporters ousted. PMuse writes "The Register and others are reporting that all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election."

What does avian flu look like?DevL writes "Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson has managed to capture images of a H5N1 (bird flu) virus entering and taking control of a cell.
While the text is in Swedish, the images speak for themselves."

Torrent user goes up the river.stinerman writes to tell us that the Hong Kong man who was recently arrested for making several movies available via BitTorrent has had his sentence handed down. Chan aka "Big Crook" uploaded Daredevil, Red Planet, and Miss Congeniality which landed him 3 months in jail.

Golden weighs in on OpenDocument debate.OSS_ilation writes "With so much FUD and anti-FUD flying in the face of Massachusetts' decision to go with OpenDocument, it's no surprise that open source advocate Bernard Golden weighs in with his take on current events."

User says new downloadable television just plain "sucks."Thomas Hawk writes "In the past few weeks the three major studios have all announced deals to begin offering downloadable television for consumers -- Apple/ABC, DirecTV/NBC, and Comcast/CBS. The problem with each of these respective offerings is that they largely suck. Apple sells expensive low res limited television from ABC. NBC's new service will only work on DirecTV DVRs (uh hello McFly, why pay money for this service when I can just record it for free). And CBS' downloadable programming could contain commercials."

I not sure their desire to put in DRM on their CDs won't cause them more grief than it saved them in non-pirated copies of the disc (which is probably already on P2P sites, most probably because of this fiasco)

"Since CD sales have been falling, and it's cheaper to blame piracy than develop original artists, let's put a DRM rootkit on our CDs to prevent copying."

"But wait sir, what happens when people find it? Won't that motivate people to avoid buying CDs since they don't know if they can trust us anymore?"

"Don't worry. We'll hide it really really well so no one knows about it. Even though we have to run a firewall and antivirus software on our network to protect against vulnerabilities that no one even knows exist yet, we can safely assume that not a single soul on the entire earth will find our rootkit. And if we get sued, we'll can probably get off somehow by screaming DMCA. The lawyers are looking into it as we speak. Plus if no one finds it and sales go up, we all get bigger bonuses."

Your point is well-taken, but:Since CD sales have been falling, and it's cheaper to blame piracy than develop original artists

I'm not sure why people say things like that. It's a hell of a lot easier to find new good music today than it was 5 years ago, and a thousand times easier than it was 5 years before that. Maybe I just live in some weird radio paradise area that doesn't only play Avril Lavigne.

If there's a problem, and I'm not sure there is, it's that they play the same song off a CD for 3 months o

"I'm not sure why people say things like that. It's a hell of a lot easier to find new good music today than it was 5 years ago, and a thousand times easier than it was 5 years before that. Maybe I just live in some weird radio paradise area that doesn't only play Avril Lavigne."Simple...

1.) It depends on your definition of "good". This is a subjective argument that the labels can't win on.

2.) The downward forcing of prices for CDs from the likes of WalMart is causing their decline in profits. The labels th

Motive? I don't think a dislike of the RIAA is enough to damage one's own reputation. I could understand if it suddenly came out at the same time that a number of companies had done something like this, but I don't think Sony would do it on their own, knowing that it may drive people who actual listen to music to simply buy from other labels.

...that they went after the guy that uploaded Daredevil, Red Planet, and Miss Congeniality. Does this mean that they are really serious and will protect their copyrighted materials no matter how crappy they may be? Or, are they so pissed at this guy for reminding P2P users that these three movies were made that they had to do something to punish him? If the latter, I hope whoever posted Gigli on eDonkey has a good lawyer.

Why don't the networks give people the choice to either download HDTV shows in WITH ADS from their site for FREE or download HDTV shows WITHOUT ADS for $2.00? They could even create their own torrent type network that only works with their network to lessen the load.

What if there was a geoIP lookup, and the network credited the nearest affiliate in some way? Network is happy because they can distribute in upper lower bulgoslovia without bother to sell to a local affiliate in every single country. Existing local affiliates are happy because all the downloads earn them something.

The affiliates probably wouldn't be happy about either of those options.

This assumes (a) that the affiliates are not owned by the broadcaster and (b) that the affiliates are in a position of power.

Let's think for a minute. What's a better market for an advertiser : All of the viewers in one major market, or all of the users of iTunes?

The local, independant affiliate has lost market share in a big, big way over the years. They don't have the sway over the broadcasters that they once had. How many people get their TV off-air ( not via cable or satellite ) these days? Is that market the wealthier, even middle-class group that advertisers like to target? Affiliates might not be the most important part of the network equation, at least not for long...

This assumes (a) that the affiliates are not owned by the broadcaster and (b) that the affiliates are in a position of power.

Granted.

What's a better market for an advertiser : All of the viewers in one major market, or all of the users of iTunes?

It depends whether it's a local or national business.

The local, independant affiliate has lost market share in a big, big way over the years. They don't have the sway over the broadcasters that they once had. How many people get their TV off-air ( not via cable or s

Why bother creating annother torrent type network? Just include ads and drop the tracker a week after it airs. The Internet could be considered just an extension of the RF broadcast business model to further distances.

Sure it would: The advertisement part of the file would all of the sudden start failing hash checks. Even though they are no longer actively downloading, the seeder should be able to realize that it has a corrupted file and redownload the changed sections. The initial TV station seed would then just have to be in a superseed type mode where it propogates the ads first to the people who have the rest of the show so that they can quickly propagate through the torrent.

I think the biggest reason is the predominance of really basic, easy-to-use editing tools. And no, I'm not talking iMovie, even. Just QuickTime Pro, for instance, gives you the ability to cut segments out of a video stream. Until they have a way of guaranteeing an impression every time you view (i.e., making it available only by live stream), there won't be an option for free viewing with commercials.

Yeah, because the cheap availability of VCR's with a fast-forward button and able to record absolutely killed the ad-supported over the air model. The point is, you and I know how to do that, but 99% of the people watching don't know how to remove the ads. Any intelligent advertiser considers a stupider consumer a more valuable pair of eyeballs anyway.

VCRs do still enable ad impressions. It doesn't matter if you watch the 30 second spot and hear the jingle, or if you just see the McDonalds logo while fastforwarding through. An impression is an impression is an impression, and to any company large enough to care, it doesn't matter if you know their jingle as long as they're getting mind-share.I agree that large portions of people may not know how to do this from the get-go, but I do believe that the perception* that distribution through these channels p

Good idea, but it only solves half the ad revenue problem. The network is happy, it gets the national ads put into place. But the affiliates don't get to sell the local ads.Us old time satelite dish guys still remember the dead air "holes" the networks leave in place for the locals to insert local spots in. You can tell the locals, they are the ones with real prices, real dates, locations you recognize, etc. Sometimes you can hear the little tweedle-chirp that triggers the local tape players on and off.

Why don't the networks give people the choice to either download HDTV shows in WITH ADS from their site for FREE or download HDTV shows WITHOUT ADS for $2.00?

One of the major problems with this is that they don't have ads to show; advertisers aren't exactly biting at the bit to stick their ads on a download instead of on-air. Why is that? Because there does not exist an official ratings system for downloads. Until Nielsen or some other group begins collecting reliable and independent stats on viewershi

Until Nielsen or some other group begins collecting reliable and independent stats on viewership of video downloads, you won't see any advertisers that are willing to pay big money for ads on downloaded video.

Does Neilsen still work on polls plus power consumption? 'Cause I foresee problems getting this off the gound...

Neilsen Suit: Pardon me sir, I wonder if you might tell me which of these shows you download
L337 D00D: Why, none all all. These shows are only available via unauthorised downloads. T

Apple video uses QVGA, which is Quater VGA. It means exactly what you think it does, you can put 4 tiles of QVGA into one VGA image. That's 320x240 pixels. 320x240 VERY compressed pixels. VGA is the same resolution as NTSC. Yes, it's crappier than network television quality, if that's possible.

Go to TorrentSpy.com and download a 350 meg episode of Prison Break. With just DSL you can download faster than you can watch. Or go for a 700 meg version, which is insane quality.

These are just words, and words can not describe the bullshit that Apple is selling.

BitTorrent doesn't work for streaming at all, as blocks are downloaded pretty much at random. In general I found that video becomes watchable only when you get 90-95% of the file. Before that the only useful thing you're likely to get out of a partial file is to be able to verify that it's what you want and that the quality is good enough.

Apple video uses QVGA, which is Quater VGA. It means exactly what you think it does, you can put 4 tiles of QVGA into one VGA image. That's 320x240 pixels. 320x240 VERY compressed pixels. VGA is the same resolution as NTSC. Yes, it's crappier than network television quality, if that's possible.

Yup. Optimized for the video iPod. You are somehow thinking it should be optimized for your computer? Not until Apple can make more money on that model...

NTSC is usually sampled at 720x480, probably to get good representation of color, which is modulated around 3.579 MHz. The higher-than-necessary sampling rate also reduces "jaggies". If the pixels are to be square, the image must be downsampled to 640x480 to fit a 4x3 aspect ratio display. The actual available information cannot exceed 2x(color carrier)/(horizontal scan frequency)=454. A portion of that 454 must be sacrificed to horizontal retrace. In practice, high luminance frequencies interfere with colo

But I looked up the facts, and found that the broadcast NTSC luminance bandwidth is 4.2Mhz [ntsc-tv.com] even when using a comb filter, and the active time of a single line is 52.66 of 63.555 s [arachnotron.nl], resulting in:

2*4.2e6/525/29.97*52.66/63.555 = 442.35 active pixels per line.

Wow.

Directly at the camera/dvd player, and using S-Video, that is usually more though. You're just not looking at all the pixels on a normal TV monitor, plus you're making them more fuzzy if you hook it up using a simple composite cable...

But when your are receiving analog TV signals from air or cable, and displaying on your big glass tube, only 442 pixels is what you get...

Ugh.

By the way, 2*5e6/525/29.97 = 636, so even from a 5Mhz luminance signal and no inactive pixels, you don't get to 640 individual pixels.

Now, of course, when sampling close to the Nyquist-Shannon frequency [wikipedia.org], you get aliasing problems, so that should explain why we're digitizing analog video into more pixels than what the analog source can contain.

Recent developments in Kansas have paved the way for the largest increase of "Science" class offerings to our next generation of young Americans. Take "CZO140: A field study of the behavior of Unicorns" for example. Students will learn how to make Unicorn calls, analyze a maidens purity through Unicorn reactions and extract faerie dust from Unicorn droppings. For years "Rational Science" has frowned upon the link between faerie dust and Unicorn dung, likening it to a futile study of plain old horse shit. But now that science is not limited to natural explanations of phenomena jobs in academia are readily available to anyone with a wild imagination and a fragile grasp on reality!

Yes indeed, the Kansas school board has changed the definition of 'science' so that it's no longer limited to natural phenomena. I'm sure their authority rests on members' vast curriculum vitae and numerous Nobel awards, or what a 300-foot Jesus told them.

I feel for students of the Kansas school system when they try to enter the job market. If I were hiring and saw they were from Kansas, I would immediately be concerned that they wouldn't have the rational thinking skills necessary to function in the real world. Actually, for that same reason, I think the Kansas school system should lose its accreditation.

It's not a "wild-eyed devotion" so much as a recognition that one thing is science and one thing is not. Kansan students are not going to be graduating knowing what is and is not science. I won't have any positions in my company available for astrologers either.

Your arguments are entirely fucking wrong, the fact that they've been modded up as insightful is just sad. There's really no other way of putting this. Intelligent Design is a metaphysical theory since it cannot be falsified. Scienctific theories are falsifiable, metaphysical theories are not. To teach metaphysical theories as scientific is to teach lies as truth. This has nothing to do with claiming religious or other metaphysical beliefs are whacko. To be a scientist or objective does not require that one disavow any unscientific beliefs, but that one recognize that they are metaphysical and not scientific.

This argument that science is wrong to discriminate against metaphysical theories is wrong. Sectarian disputes are arguments over metaphysical theories, science does not take a position on such theories and therefore cannot be drawn into such debates while retaining it's integrity. This entire attack on science as if it is antagonistic of religious beliefs is provably wrong. Those who make it should be shunned as idiots, regardless of their metaphysical positions.

Someone who is religious is different from someone who was schooled to deliberately not understand the difference between a scientific theory and what is more or less a religious belief.

I'm very glad that when I was a kid, some of my teachers took the time to go over logic and reason instead of just facts. Being able to figure something out is more useful than knowing specific tidbits of knowledge, because you can generally use that skill to find the knowledge when you need to.

Teaching creationism as something that's in the same category as evolution is a huge blow to that potentially developing framework of logic in someone's mind. There's nothing wrong with it as a religious belief, it just doesn't belong in a science class any more than cake recipes belong in a geometry class.

I think he was referring to the difference between scientific and not scientific.

Basically if ID is presented as a scientific theory in Kansas and the students believe this, they are at a disadvantage to students that learn ID is NOT a scientific theory.

Quit trying to make people into anti religious zealots when they may not be. I really don't care if you believe a pink unicorn created the world in 2 minutes. But I do care if you cannot determine what is scientific/verifiable/repeatable/falsifiable or not.

From the article: "A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of California consumers who may have been harmed by anti-piracy software installed by some Sony music CDs. A second, nationwide class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed against Sony in a New York court on Wednesday seeking relief for all U.S. consumers who have purchased any of the 20 music CDs in question [slashdot.org].

The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practice."

Those obscene damage awards, while doing little for the consumers but lots for attorneys, do accomplish one important thing: deterrence. So it's a win-win. The lawyers get paid, and the people who bought the DRM-infected CDs don't have to come up with the money to hire a lawyer to sue.

Sony may have a black eye over this, but in the end they are gonna win. In fact all the big media conflagrations are going to win..
Its not because their music is better, its because the minute they hear something open and interesting they just copy it, change it around and feed it to the million of idiots paying for their antiquated system of development (read theft).
They have been stealing IP (intellectual property) for so long,that they feel they can do anything.
Well not only *can* but *will*...
Thats the reason you don't hear anything new out there, and the reason the song mills of Nashville, LA, and New York are busier than ever.
Busy churning out shit..
Why should they reward creativity that does not fit in with their designs on control? They don't have to because they can clone any sound and any look. They not only can they do..
Thats why most of the great music is dead.
They don't really need DRM, they already have a version of it far superior.. that being total A&R control..
They want minions of slave musicians.. and they have it.
If i sound embittered it because I am, but not for the most obvious reasons.
although they all are valid/

bear in mind that 'shit' makes a lot of money.Just because you decide not to like it, doesn't mean nobody else likes it.I would think we have had enough of people like you who automatically thinks that everyone like the same things as you do. Hell, there are probably whole Genres of music you refuse to listen to becasause its 'lame'.

If people making music wouldn't sign the contracts, the contracts would be changed. Plus, producing your own music is damn cheap these days.

I didn't say anyone had to like what i like..
Thats not the point of this whole thread
The point is the music industry gets it coming and going, and they have a cabal..
Regardless of genre.
Im not going anywhere..
Peace

The article also has claims from CA that the DRM damages the computer's ability to make rips of ANY CDs including non-copyrighted CDs.

According to Computer Associates, the Sony software makes itself a default media player on a computer after it is installed. The software then reports back the user's Internet address and identifies which CDs are played on that computer. Intentionally or not, the software also seems to damage a computer's ability to "rip" clean copies of MP3s from non-copy protected CDs, the security company said.
"It will effectively insert pseudo-random noise into a file so that it becomes less listenable," said Sam Curry, a Computer Associates vice president. "What's disturbing about this is the lack of notice, the lack of consent, and the lack of an easy removal tool."

And the original patch has been replaced by one one third of the size.
Mark Russinovich posted new info on the (smaller) patch on his blog showing it causes BSODs in Windows.

If they do start including commercials in downloadable TV, what's to stop people editing them out?

I think you're missing the point. These are commercials in a file that you pay for, that you download with your own bandwidth. Why should you have to tediously edit-out commercials from a program you already paid for? By a similar rationale, why should you have to sit through commercials in a movie theatre, after paying $8 for admission and who knows how much for concessions?

People really need to realize that their attention, and their personal information, are very valuable to marketers. It's not really a bargain to get a free T-shirt in exchange for signing up for a credit card. Your name, address, income, etc. are worth a lot of money to advertising folks. The T-shirt, if you wear it, is free advertising for them. Every second you watch a commercial, it's equivalent to giving money to the "sponsor." But people don't generally calculate the value of intangibles such as their time and attention. Any marketing students or professionals out there know the exact figure, the amount each TV viewer's time is worth to the people buying ads? In pennies per second? For Homer Simpson, for example? (White male, 35 years old, nuclear technician, wife and three kids.) If you have to download and (theoretically) watch the ads, they should be free, like broadcast TV. Otherwise you're paying for them twice.

I am also a True Believer and attend a worship service every Sunday.
That said, ID is NOT true science. It is simply a score of men who wish to get nonsense into our textbooks.

Ok, I rarely comment on lame moderation, but really, you're currently moded "Flamebait" for that?!? Someone needs to turn in their geek card and have their moderation responsibilities take away from them. Until someone can come up with an experiment to prove the existence of a deity, that's not flamebait, it's fact. "Intelligent Des

How the heck do you propose to prove that "some intelligent designer" "guides" evolutionary forces?
How the heck to you propose to prove that life spontaneously emerged from nothing?
I don't want religion in science classes, but I do want honesty. If scientific observation indicates that current theories are inadequate to explain the complexities biological structures, why would you want to supress that information?

How the heck to you propose to prove that life spontaneously emerged from nothing?

How do you propose to prove that God spontaneously emerged from nothing? And let's not have the "oh he was always there" chickenshit answer - if that can happen with God, it can happen with the Universe.

Plus, evolution makes no comment on the origin of life. It is a theory on the origin of new species, which is a different thing entirely.

If scientific observation indicates that current theories are inadequate to explain the complexities biological structures, why would you want to supress that information?

That information is not being surpressed. Scientists acknowledge that, for example, we don't know what was around prior to the Big Bang. Scientists acknowledge that we're not sure of the exact mechanism of the beginning of biological life. Scientists acknowledge that we're still learning bits about how evolution works.

Intelligent design is being surpressed, but that's a different story alltogether. ID is just saying "we don't know how this works yet, so LET'S MAKE SHIT UP!"

Inteligent Design is "science" once you redefine the term "science" to be more broad minded. It's like Microsoft redefining "Open" file formats to include Microsoft Word. *Heh* Perhaps we'll see an "Intelligent Document" format come out of Redmond soon.

Uh, you are wrong. Origin of Species talks about how one species may, or may not, give rise to additional species. Perhaps you should go read it a bit. Brief History of Time, while an excllent read, is more appropriate for universe origins stuff, but has nothing to do with populations of living organisms. Behe's & Dembski's lunitic ravings require us to dismiss most of the stuff that we've learned from chaos, quantum, and complexity theories since thier inceptions. However, their rationalles based

Is if Sony practices what they preach?? If I start sharing $SYS$Daredevil.AVI and $SYS$AllMetalicaSongs.mp3.zip, will their network monitoring tools not notice it? Seeing what they have done with their little rootkit, that seems only logical for them..

Or perhaps more usefully, $SYS$EverquestCheats.exe. It's a pity that cheaters are using this to target WoW, when they should be targetting Everquest. It'd be much more fun to pit the Sony departments against each other even more.

Intelligent design supporters ousted....In Pennsylvania. They made some pretty nice headway in Kansas, though. This seems like a rather ~focused~ Slashback if it can recall a story from May 2nd [slashdot.org] that ends well for the side of science and well-reasoned individuals, but ignore the story that got front page treatment earlier today [slashdot.org].

These ID guys are starting to scare me a little. It's one thing to learn this stuff at Bible Camp and what not, it's another to compel teachers to give it time in science class. Emba

Well, I certainly can't wait for courses such Recognizing Evil Spirits in Medical Crises or How The Devil Can Make Your Engine Misfire. Now that we've got rid of all that nasty naturalism, we can finally get back to tearing down lightning rods that block Divine thunderbolts and teaching our children how to recognize witches. At last, the Enlightenment has ended. Bring back the Dark Ages!

Unless you're talking about Intelligent Falling [theonion.com], then all bets are off. In all seriousness, this is just a little speedbump in the march of progress. The Kansas creationists tried this in 1999, and got voted out. Now they're are back, but they'll be easier to beat this time. Teaching creationism was found to be unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard [talkorigins.org]. In the Intelligent Design (ID) trial in Dover, strong evidence has been presented showing that "ID" is a drop-in replacement for "scientific creationism

OpenDocument DRM, Intelligently Designed.I think the interest in Sony's rootkit methods will only grow as spyware writers begin to include a rootkit with their install routines, so that Spybot, MS Antispyware, and competitors will begin to have further trouble cleaning up customer's computers. Perhaps it's already started?

And as a side note, today AVG detected my Adaware 1.06.exe file as containing a trojan downloader. I guess whichever site like Download.com that I got it from was less than trustworthy,

Since the Avian flu video couldn't be purchased online because it sucks, and the DVD's can't be purchased because they have a rootkit, the State of Massachussets proposed to download an Open Document version of it. Luckily, this became available for all, including intelligent design proponents in Kansas who realized someone very evil had to design those viruses, because they couldn't just simply evolve. In related news, a new torrent file of the Avian Flu virus was distributed in Hong Kong, but a misunderstanding led to the government think that the distributor was actually committing bioterrorism, so they got him arrested. In his defense, he said: "the Flying Spaguetti Monster made me do it."

Glad to hear voters in Dover chucked all 8 school board members trying to force creationism into the public school system. I have been following the Dover case on the online newspapers from Dover - lots of allegations floating around about several of the board members having perjured themselves. Which would be par for the course.

You want hi-res Hollywood quality (Lost) television on the cheap with no advertisements? Come on.

To say a service sucks, go ahead and cite things like low-resolution, klunky DRM, limited playback options, platform dependence, or anything like that. But don't complain that their either charging for it or showing ads.

How about we complain that they're charging for it, and also trying to charge a monthly subscription fee?

You know, with all the absurd attempts at this that I've seen, it almost makes one think that they might intentionally be trying to sabotauge its acceptance with a crappy rollout. Gee....big networks would NEVER do that to try to protect their current advertising revenue model, would they?

all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board
that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside
Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election.

That Schoolboard actually has nine members, of which
only eight came up for reelection this year.

You can expect the ninth to get the boot next year, but
for now, they still have one idiot left. Let's just hope
their charter doesn't include a lot of ways for a lone
moron voice to cause endless trouble.

"...all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election."Can I just say "Amen to that!":P

I'm putting together a letter to Microsoft right now, regarding this Sony rootkit disaster. Basically, it asks MS to publically come out opposed to this sort of behavior. This is exactly the kind of programming that MS (claims, at least) gives Windows a bad name. MS consistently says that it is bad applications and bad drivers that cause stability problems, and that spyware and viruses are mostly Windows centric because Windows is the most dominanat desktop platform.

Yet when Sony installs a DRM rootkit, with now exposed security and stability issues, MS says nothing. Sony's DRM only works on Windows, thus giving a reason to move to Mac OS and Linux, and by not censuring this kind of behavior, MS effectively says "it's okay for vendors to cripple our OS and drive business to our competitors, it's okay for Sony to implicitly install a bad driver, it's okay for Sony to make a mockery of our OS, and to make public one of it's weaknesses".

It's embarassing for those folks who administer Windows machines to have to go into work, and be asked why they still run Window's boxen when the one big advantage of MS - support from a large company - is nowhere to be found when blackhat tactics like rootkits are used by a major vendor. Even a well written rootkit (which this is not) still will introduce bugs in other applications that must go through the same subsystem the kit is bound to - having this kind of tactic tacitly approved of by the software vendor only leads to a world where it's more dangerous to upgrade applications, for fear of conflict - the traditional Linux distro problem, now twice as bad in the Windows world.

I urge everyone to point these facts out to MS. Even if MS approves of this kind of user bait and switch, and over invasive DRM on principle, I believe these arguments will force MS into the position of having to publically disapprove. Which has the nice side effect of giving this invasion of consumer rights the attention in the media that it deserves.

The real question is not how they can put up with what Sony did, but how they can write an OS which allows a vendor to implicitly and silently install a driver that roots the system. Why does Windows not put up a dialog box saying "Hey, this disk wants to install something. It is not signed and not certified. Do you want to allow it?"

If Windows did that much, then it would be so much easier to prevent this kind of crap. Heck, Mac puts up a warning just because an installer wants to run an external program.

If you look at Microsoft's Office XML Reference Schema License [microsoft.com], you will see that it has massive restrictions on what you can do with it. You are only allowed to read and write. Things like editing are not included (and even seem to be explicitly excluded. Microsoft may be able to deny the license for anybody for any non-governmental uses, and, in any event, they can make your whole license invalid by modifying the schema on the next iteration of Office (including, possibly even the first official release of office 12).

It may also be possible that they could force your customers to register for the right to use your software (so they know who to 'go after', in cutting off your air supply).

I can see lenders and shareholders running screaming from any business that embarks on a major undertaking, having accepted these terms. You would have to be either foolish or desparate to do so unless you could recoup the full cost of your endeavor with your first contract (which could raise the cost of your contract, making you non-competetive).

Unlike the ODF, which (contrary to MS's FUD) does not place any restrictions on a company using it(*), Microsoft's XML license would leave any company accepting it at the abject mercy of a convicted monopolist.

Good luck. You'll need it.

(*)Unlike KOffice (which also implements ODF), Open Office is LGPL, which means that a company could legaly compile in proprietary extensions to OO without having to release their own code. That is, in fact, precisely what SUN does with StarOffice. This opens up opportunities for local vendors that would never be available under MS-Office.

Intelligent design supporters ousted.PMuse writes "The Register and others are reporting that all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election."

Think of it as political evolution in action.

I think it's getting to the point where the first thing any candidate for school board should be asked is how they feel about the teaching of Evolution and Intelligent Design in schools. This is a mandatory pass/fail question.

If the second coming ever happens, God is going to be so busy, with the troubles of his own flock, and of course, twits like you.

Me, I'm hoping there's enough of my corpse left for the Valkiries to carry me back to Valhalla, to spend Eternity drinking and whoring with Thor and that bunch; I'm sure Heaven would be fucking boring.

Me, I'm hoping there's enough of my corpse left for the Valkiries [sic] to carry me back to Valhalla, to spend Eternity drinking and whoring with Thor and that bunch; I'm sure Heaven would be fucking boring.

I don't know... those Asgard don't really seem to be a very exciting bunch. But they do have some really cool technology.

As much as I'd like Cushman and his fellow anti-science zealots out on their asses, I'd say that his zero votes in one precinct has the stench of fraud on it. The vote is disturbingly close [yorkdispatch.com], so Cushman would be right to contest the election. This won't effect the results much even if he were to gain a seat, because it would then only be 7 to 1 in favor of science on the Dover school board.

A good portion of the voting Americans are crazy anti-science religious zealots, who are well-organized, and write lots of letters to Congressmen. How do you think Bush got elected? Well, a good portion of the Bush electorate are simply rich people who want to keep their tax breaks and ability to pollute without repercussion (specifically his homies in Texas--I'm looking at you, ALCOA [txpeer.org]).

Many current boards of education are there because (a) they're the only ones who cared enough to run, or (b) they were elected to oust the sort of people who want to show first graders how to use condoms. "Public" schools have become a battleground for people who want to warp everybody's children their way. Everyone loses.